Explore Rome in 3D
Rome is an eternal city. With a history spanning over 2,500 years and regimes from the early kingdom, through the republic, the empire, and later as the heart of the Catholic faith in the Vatican city, each has made their mark on the current urban architectural landscape of Rome. Now, with the release of thousands of new 3D buildings for the city, you can explore the blending of the ages in layered construction of Rome from within Google Earth.

Mapping towards crisis relief in the Horn of Africa
In the wake of intense drought, the Horn of Africa is gripped by its worst famine in more than 60 years. Up-to-date geospatial information is a critical factor in assessing the situation. With recent updates from our imagery partner GeoEye, we now have high resolution imagery available in Google Earth. Along with community mapping efforts in Google Map Maker, improved geographical information is helping to facilitate the emergency response. Visit the Google Lat Long blog to learn more.

Introducing Panoramio Groups
This month we launched Panoramio Groups, a new feature that lets you create a sub-community within Panoramio around a topic you’re passionate about, so you can easily engage with like-minded photographers and hobbyists. To share your own interests and passions through photos, hop over to Panoramio and create your own group or join an existing one from the Groups Directory. Visit the Google Lat Long blog to learn more!

Explore new large geographic features
Our planet has some truly amazing geographic features; the Himalayas, the Rub' al Khali desert and the Sierra Nevadas to name just a few. We’ve added the availability of mountain ranges, deserts, plains and more under the “Borders and Labels” layer, which you can view by making sure the layer is checked in the left Layers panel in Google Earth and look for the green labels. To learn more about this new feature, visit the Google Lat Long blog.

Street View visits The Iraq Museum
The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad hosts a staggering wealth of artifacts from the earliest human settlements. Now you can explore this museum and its 6,000 year-old treasures even if you can’t make the trip to Baghdad. When you see an exhibit you like, take a closer look with 360-degree views of individual antiquities. Read more on the Google Lat Long blog or if this has whet your appetite for more, you can visit other museums with the Google Art Project.

New and Updated Imagery
This month we added new and updated imagery, including high-resolution aerial updates for the USA. Many countries also received high-resolution satellite updates, including Antarctica, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan, United Kingdom and more. Take a look at these changes and many more in our update post here, or view this file directly in Google Earth. Don't forget you can use the View > Historical Imagery option to see imagery choices through the time slider.